


we have paved these streets with moments of defeat

by nightflower



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post Season 2, canon typical injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-30 22:02:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6443071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightflower/pseuds/nightflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karen Page is not a nurse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we have paved these streets with moments of defeat

**Author's Note:**

> Title from These Streets by Bastille

New York is never silent, but there’s a specific sort of quiet that Karen can’t help but enjoy. It’s the quiet of the Bulletin’s offices at 3 in the morning, when everyone has gone home except for her. Ellison had checked in on her before leaving hours ago, coffee mug in hand. But now it was just her and her laptop and the blank white page of the latest story she was trying to find the words to write. It just wasn’t coming together - she wanted to blame it on the inkling feeling that she still didn’t know the whole story, didn’t know the truth, but she had turned over every stone, rooted out every fact from every corner she could think of. 

The cursor kept blinking in and out, waiting for her fingers on the keyboard. The harsh white of the blank page made her eyes sting. Or maybe she just needed sleep. Karen slouched back into her chair, rubbing her fingers across her gritty eyes. Idly, she spun in her chair, looking at the walls. They were still covered in the remnants of Ben’s career, his awards and award-winning articles. Looking at them filled her with a melancholy she didn’t care to think about. Ellison insisted that she could get awards of her own, someday, with the quality of work that she turned out. That wasn’t what she wanted. 

For a long moment, Karen stared up at the ceiling, listening. There were tires crunching on the asphalt outside, and the clock on the wall was ticking steadily. She’d rake over the contents of the archives one last time, she decided. Tomorrow morning. Slowly, she sat up, shutting the lid of her laptop and starting to gather her things into her purse. 

When her phone rang, the high pitched jangling that shattered the peace nearly made her jump out of her skin. Fumbling, Karen opened up her bag, moving her hand past a jumble of pens, sheaves of paper, and her compact until she found her phone. She didn’t recognize the number on the screen. Staring at the glow of the screen, Karen considered for a moment just not answering. 

The moment didn’t last. Phrases about curiosity and its more deadly properties echoed in her head, but she’d never been one to heed those voices. She slid her thumb across the screen and raised it to her ear. 

“… Karen?” A voice rasped from the other side. Matt’s voice. Karen tried to ignore the shiver that crawled down her spine at the sound - she hadn’t heard it in weeks, not since “I’m Daredevil”, not since she told him that she needed space, time. She’d been so invested in her new life that there had been whole minutes that she could pretend that she had never known a man called Matt Murdock. That she’d never known Daredevil. 

“Yeah,” she breathed, ignoring the urge to hit the ‘end call’ button and tuck her phone back into her purse as if it had never interrupted her night. 

“I - I need your help,” he said, words whispered like a confession. 

She didn’t know what to say. Tucking her hair behind her ear, she glanced out of the window at the harsh orange of the street lamps that illuminated the street outside. 

“I know you - you said… But Claire isn’t here, and Foggy -” 

He didn’t finish, but Karen thought she could end the sentence for him. She’d been keeping in touch with Foggy - he and Matt had made a tentative peace, and after spending months with those two she knew that, despite all the shit he had put them through, Matt was going to try not to jeopardize that. Not again. 

He was slurring his words. Karen wondered if he even realized. Given that she was even having this conversation, he probably did. 

“Where are you?” she asked. 

A beat. And then, “My apartment. Can you -” 

She interrupted before he can continue. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” 

She hung up, and started for the door. 

———

The steep stairs that led up to Matt’s apartment creaked under Karen’s heels as she ascended, trying not to think of the last time that she’d been here. She felt echoes of her anger despite herself. She hesitated in front of his door, for a moment, studying the whorls in the wood. Without knocking, she tried the door knob - it opened silently, and Karen let herself into the shadowy front hall. Absently, she reached up and smoothed her hair before realizing how stupid that was. 

“Matt?” she called quietly, stepping down the hallway into the living room. The only answer she received was a low groan. 

Unsurprisingly, there weren’t any lights on. The room was still illuminated, though, bright light from the billboard outside the window painting the room red. The first thing Karen saw was the blood, pooling on the floor in a trail that led from the window to the couch, looking like ink spilled on the floorboards. The second was the Daredevil costume crumpled on the floor, the helmet tilted on its side. The third was Matt, sprawled on the couch with shorts on and his head leaning back against the arm.

It hurt more than she expected to see him again. A sucker punch to the gut, momentarily removing all the breath from her lungs. Red hot anger in her belly, at the thought of how he’d lied, and lied, and lied for months when all she’d asked for was the truth. But today wasn’t about her, and it wasn’t about the forgiveness that she wasn’t willing to give. 

His eyes were closed, dark hair tousled and sticking up in strange directions - possibly from being crushed under the mask, possibly it was matted with blood. As she came closer, that second possibility seemed more real. There was blood oozing from a cut on his forehead. That wasn’t even the most concerning thing, though, because there was a gash on his torso that was sluggishly bleeding, and it looked deep. 

The sight set her heart pounding, her hands sweating - dumping her purse and crossing to room quickly, Karen knelt next to the couch, brushing her fingers over Matt’s forehead.

“Matt,” she hissed urgently, “Matt, are you awake? Can you hear me?”

The burner phone that he’d undoubtedly used to call her was dangling from his hand. Rational thought cut through the cloud of panic in Karen’s head — check for a pulse. Her hands fluttered across his skin and found his neck, pressed down and found the thready beat of his heart. 

His long lashes, dark against his cheeks, fluttered. “Karen? You came…” 

Karen took a deep breath, which she let out in a stream of words. “Yes, I came, and you need stitches. I can’t give you stitches, Matt, you need a doctor. I’m going to—” 

She was already moving to grab the phone from his hand. Matt flew into motion almost immediately, the phone dropping to the floor with a clunk, his hand wrapping around her wrist. His grip was tight but not painful—there was something wet on his hand, and Karen was certain there would be a bloody hand print brace-letting her wrist when he let go.

“Please don’t, please—I just… I need your help.”

Staring at him with disbelief, Karen scoffed. “Sure, yeah, you said that—and I said I can’t give you stitches. I can’t even sew a button on a shirt. And I’m definitely not a nurse, so just - please let me call someone who can help you.” 

“I can do the stitches,” Matt insisted blearily. “I just need your help. I think - I think I have a concussion?”

The end of his sentence raised like a question, but Karen was pretty sure it wasn’t. Upon further inspection, the cut on his forehead was already surrounded by the purpling of an impressive bruise. 

Swallowing thickly, Karen stared down at him and bit her lip. Part of her wanted to ask her what he had been doing that night, who it was that he was after, if there was a story. Another part wanted to throw her hands up in the air and wash her hands of the situation. Any rational person would just call an ambulance. Or—or some other medical practitioner. Karen hadn’t signed up for this, didn’t want this.

And yet. 

“What do you need me to do?” 

The grip he had on her wrist loosened, and his hand fell away. She looked down—she’d been right, there was blood, a stark contrast against the paleness of her skin. There was a time when the sight would have filled her with disgust, but she just felt numb. 

“First aid kit. On top of the fridge. I don’t think I could…” He trails off, and Karen doesn’t wait for him to try to pick up the thread of the sentence again. 

Rising from her crouch, Karen crossed the room and found the box he was referring to. She brought it back, popped open the lid. It was full of things that she didn't know the first thing about, but she was fairly certain that she was going to need the antiseptic. 

“Matt,” she said, “You’re going to have to tell me what to do.” 

He licked his lips. A long moment of silence passed, Karen staring at him beseechingly. She was kneeling on the floor, and there was blood seeping into the fabric of her stockings. She was going to have to get rid of these clothes, too—it was going to become a habit, apparently, disposing of bloodied clothes. She took a deep breath. Now wasn’t the time. 

“First… First you need to sterilize the needle...”

Carefully, Karen followed all of Matt’s instructions, distracting him with questions every time he fell silent for too long, even if she wound up asking the same question multiple times. He didn’t call her out on the repetition, either knowing why she was doing it or unaware that it was happening. She decided not to dwell on that too long—if his concussion was worse than he seemed to think it was, she would be truly out of her depth. Karen wound up doing almost all of the stitches herself, as Matt’s attempt to help were useless at best and damaging at worst, his spatial awareness —or whatever—utterly wrecked. 

She swallowed thickly, trying not to think of the sensation of the needle pulling through skin. Trying not to smell the copper of blood, or hear the occasional grunt that Matt couldn’t contain, or even to see what was right in front of her. If she thought about it too hard, she might be ill. 

After what felt like hours, the hole in him was shut. She couldn’t tell if she’d done a decent job again. In her head, Karen was vowing never to answer her phone again. 

Once she’d returned the first aid kit to its place, and scrubbed at her hands for five minutes in Matt’s shadowy bathroom, Karen sat down on the arm of the couch near his feet.

“You don’ have to stay…” Matt murmured. His eyes were closed again. 

“I heard something about needing to wake people who have concussions up every two hours,” she said. Rather, she’d googled it before she sat down. “I don’t want you to bleed out in your brain after all that work I just did.” She tried for a light tone, but Karen didn’t think it worked.

Silence fell. Or, rather, another specific sort of quiet. This one was filled with the sound of Matt’s hitched breathing. Distantly, a siren was going off. Karen turned to look out the window, watching the wavering lights of the billboard. There was a spatter of blood on the window pane, too, she thought. 

“Karen?” 

She started at the sound of his voice, having thought that he’d fallen asleep. 

“Yeah?”

She hoped, suddenly, desperately, that he wouldn't try to thank her. She didn't know how she would respond. 

“I—you didn’t—you didn’t have to do this… I—”

Shifting slightly on her perch, Karen took a breath and interrupts. “I know.”

He went quiet, and she settled in to wait.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic - feedback would be much appreciated!


End file.
